by Nancy Holder
Of course her mother had no idea that this year, Buffy had dressed for function and not form: in her knee-high boots, black shorts, and red silk blouse tied in a knot, the Chosen One could leap, kick, gouge, run, and skewer with the greatest of ease. Add a patch over one eye—yo, ho, ho and a bottle of root beer. If anybody asked, she was captain of the H.M.S. Hellmouth. The very model of a modern Slayer general.
“I’m a pirate queen, Mom,” Buffy explained. “Like Anne Bonny. They all dressed like this.”
“I don’t know about that,” her mother commented. “Just please be careful. You don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.”
Of course not, Buffy thought. No slavering sixteen-year-old boys, just slavering, long-fanged vampires.
Major sigh.
Her mother had offered to drive her to the Bronze, but Buffy just couldn’t accept. If there was trouble, it would be easier for her to handle knowing her mom was safe at home where no uninvited vampires could cross their threshold. Not to mention that when your reputation needed CPR, you might as well show up in a hearse as have your parents drive you somewhere.
Still, she knew it was no joy for her mom to be alone in a new town on a nostalgic night, and Buffy was sorry.
Things were quiet on the walk. Buffy scanned the area through her clear plastic umbrella, seeing nothing but glowing pumpkin faces on porches, the moon shrouded by clouds, and her own shadow splashed across buildings like a billboard: Here she is! The Slayer, all alone! But no one was checking the classifieds, not a single vampire or demon, and definitely no walking scarecrows. Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen a scarecrow in Sunnydale. There were some fields by the cemetery, but she couldn’t recall any straw men hanging around. It would be a long detour to the Bronze just to go over there and cross them off her sightseeing list. Another time, she thought.
By the time Buffy got to the Bronze, the rain had slowed but not stopped. She paid the cover to the masked hunchback at the door and joined the rest of the crowd streaming inside.
Xander and Willow had been right: On Halloween night, the Bronze was clearly the place to be if you were too old to beg for candy from strangers. Sunken cheek by devil tail, the club was jammed with dozens of witches, Frankenstein monsters and Count Draculas, four zombies, three mad scientists, two white-sheeted ghosts, and a hanged man in a pear tree.
Everyone was a little damp from the rain, and through the Bronze wafted a fragrance that could only be called eau de wet dog. Makeup was running, frizzed-out Bride of Frankenstein hair was sagging, and costumes were clinging conspicuously to people who possessed any conspicuosities to be clung to. Hey, not everybody at sixteen looked like Wonderbra Woman.
Speaking of possessed, Cordelia was in the corner putting the hex on some honey wearing a buckskin shirt, chaps, and moccasins. Cordelia was working overtime for tepee time in a very slinky, clingy Morticia Addams unoriginal complemented by her black hair and matching lips, nails, and soul. She had put a lot of time and no doubt somebody else’s effort into the Spider-Woman motif.
As Buffy looked on, Cordelia and the victim of her attentions were interrupted by a tall, dark stranger. He wore a white half-face Phantom of the Opera mask and a long cloak, and Buffy thought that with his high cheekbones and shoulder-length, blue-black hair he looked Native American. The Phantom sneered something at the guy dressed up as an Indian. It looked as though the costume had pissed the Phantom off, because he got in threateningly close—Listerine close—and sneered something at the object of Cordelia’s affections.
The costumed Indian backed off as if the Phantom were for real. Buffy watched him scramble away, obviously wigged. Then she stared in disgust as Cordelia shamelessly smiled at the Phantom, laid a hand on his biceps, and started chatting him up, herding him toward the bar.
“Major harlot,” Buffy muttered under her breath, then turned to scan the rest of the masquerade.
Cardboard skeletons hung from the ceiling of the Bronze, and each table was decorated with a black candle inside a grinning plastic jack-o’-lantern. Drinks spewing dry ice were lined up on tables and along the balcony railing. A fog machine churned out graveyard mist. The cover band jammed out a harsh version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Everybody was hopping at the zombie jamboree.
Willow and Xander weren’t there yet. Buffy was less than eager to wait by herself. She was fast becoming the school psycho, just as she had been back at Hemery High in Los Angeles. She’d totally been there, had so done that. Giles would never savvy why she thought it was so not fair. All Superman had to do was put on a pair of glasses and act clumsy at his day job. He never had to contend with the evil forces of high school while trying to save the world.
“Buffy,” Willow said behind her. Finally. “Hi.”
Wedging herself against a couple of jock types dressed as girls, Buffy twisted herself around in a tight half circle to face Willow. Xander stood beside her. Buffy blinked.
Willow and Xander were wearing suits.
Xander’s hair was slicked back. He was a new Xander, a Bizarro-world Xander, too young to be a yuppie and too clean-cut to be himself.
Willow was in a baggy dark blue suit with a skirt that hung down to her low heels. Oddly, her hair gleamed with a henna wash, and it looked pretty good. But as if to cancel out the color’s cool factor, she had tied it back with a severe tortoise-shell clip.
“Accountants. How unique,” Buffy said brightly. “I wish I’d thought of that. I could be scoring major babe points as we speak.”
Willow frowned. “No, Buffy. Not accountants.”
Xander looked dashed. “Scully and Mulder. The X-Files.” He flashed her a badge that read Sunnydale Junior Policeman and muttered, “FBI. You’re under arrest for killing dead guys.”
Buffy laughed. “It’s perfect! I’m not exhibiting much originality, I fear. Just a pirate queen.” She posed. “You two slap the cuffs on and I’ll run ’em through.”
“Oh, you look totally . . . seaworthy,” Xander gushed.
Willow added, “I thought you might dress up like a vampire. You know, as a joke.”
“Too self-referential. Besides, if I screwed up the uniform I might piss ’em off.”
“Off-pissing of vampires. You’d never want to do that.” Willow touched her hair a little shyly. “So, how do I look as a redhead?”
“A hottie,” Buffy assured her. “Maybe you should keep it.”
Xander looked confused as he glanced at Willow. “You did something to your hair?”
Willow and Buffy treaded glances and looked back at him. Willow looked philosophical and said, “No, Xander. I’ve always had bright red hair.”
“It, um, looks nice.” He flushed and said to Buffy, “Well, I was hoping we’d finally get to see your secret Slayer costume.”
Buffy shrugged. “Oh, I was going to wear it, but it’s so hard to accessorize a skintight leotard. As I’m sure you know, Xander.”
Xander threw back his head. “Yeah, but I had to hang up my cape. I was always getting typecast as a lovable, decent guy girls were safe around. Not that I’m not,” he added quickly. Reconsidered. “Or that I am.”
A contemporary man, Buffy thought, Xander seems totally confused about the acceptable male aggression level.
“I am what I am,” Willow said, “and that’s all what I am.”
Buffy nodded. It must be nice to be able to say that.
Ten times fast.
She gestured at the stage, bobbed her head in time to the backbeat. “The band is called?”
Willow smiled. “Children of the Night, believe it or not.”
Buffy grinned and continued to rock with the rhythm. “What music they make,” she said happily.
Xander kept glancing at Willow’s hair, and now he piped up, as if he had finally made all the connections. “Willow,” he said exuberantly. “Hair. Red. Red is good. Fire engines are red. Porsches are red.”
“So is blood,” said a deep, not
-good voice.
Buffy’s mouth dropped open. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, a cold-flesh-and-congealed-blood vampire bumped into her as he carried a cup across the club.
“All right. Hold it right there and let’s take it outside,” Buffy said between gritted teeth, grabbing his arm.
“Please.” He took a step backward, shaking her off.
A plague victim groused, “Ouch. That’s my foot, dude.”
The vampire ignored him. These days, most people who still said “dude” got ignored.
“This is sacred Samhuinn, the night all demons run free,” the vampire said.
“He read the same book as Rupert,” Xander commented.
“A very sacred, holy night,” the vampire continued, “when we rest while the others hunt.”
“We being the fat cats?” Buffy jibed. “The ones who’ve ordered in?”
“The vampires.” He said the word with dignity and pride, the way an armchair quarterback might say “MVP” or Cordelia might say “holder of a platinum charge card.”
“What? You sucky boys have the night off? No preying or slaying?” Buffy cocked her head and put her hand on the zipper of her Slayer’s bag, which was sitting on a bar stool. In case he was hungry, she had a nice juicy stake just waiting for him. “But if this is a scared—sacred—holy night, shouldn’t you be doing that whole praying thing in some church? Like, down in the tunnels with Big Daddy?”
“You mock us.” The vampire narrowed his eyes. “You know that if it hadn’t been for that earthquake, my master would not be trapped inside that buried church.” He was speaking of his leader, the Master vampire who had emigrated to America with the thought of making it big, like so many others in the brave New World. He came to the Hellmouth for the purpose of opening a dimensional portal that would release a Pandora’s box of evils into the world . . . including his followers.
That was a tricky business in itself; add in a major earthquake that tumbled him into a church and scattered the portal into pieces, and you have one very not-so-happy monster.
“Were it not for the unforeseen shaking of the earth, he would be aboveground with us, here, now. We’d rule this place.”
“The Bronze?” She looked around the room and spotted another fanged wonder. Another. Another. Once you noticed them, they stuck out like Waldo. The place was a regular Fangoria. “And you’re here why? To measure for curtains?”
He flashed his nasty overbite at her and said, dead seriously, “We’re here to have fun, the same as you.”
“My idea of fun doesn’t include ripping people’s throats open and drinking their blood.” Buffy opened the zipper of the bag and put her fingers around her cross, which she had taken off because it didn’t go with her costume.
Stupid much?
The vampire offered her an evil smile. He lifted up a plastic cup. “You should try it sometime.”
Willow covered her mouth. “There’s human blood in there? Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.”
Buffy raised her chin. “Anyone I know?”
“Just a snack.” The vampire made a show of tipping back the cup and taking a good, long swallow. “Mmm. A fine bouquet. Young. Fresh. Innocent.”
“So it’s not Cordelia.” Her hand hidden inside the bag, Buffy gripped the stake and glared at the vampire. “If we were alone—”
“But we’re not.” He set the cup on the table next to the pumpkin candle and dabbed at his lips with his fingertips. “Truly. We’re simply here for the celebration. I propose we call a truce.”
“Which you’ll break the first chance you get.” Buffy took a step toward him. This time he did not back up.
“We won’t break it,” he said confidently. “You have my assurance.”
“I’m supposed to stake our lives on your word?”
“Pun intended,” Willow added, stepping up behind Buffy, then taking a very courageous step to the left, slightly away from her.
The vampire’s smile was a cry for dental coverage with all major medical plans. “Tonight you can make fools of yourselves. Tomorrow night, we’ll kill you.”
“And my little dog, too?” Buffy sneered at him. “Don’t count on it.”
The vampire touched his cheap-hussy fingernail to his forehead in a kind of salute. “Oh, but we do. We count on it very much.”
“Well, I’m counting now. As in, hike-taking is your best bet for surviving the night. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six—”
“Don’t threaten me,” the vampire said angrily. “Or I’ll—”
“Hurt me?” Buffy flung at him. “Rip me to pieces? So much for your word.”
The vampire growled and stomped away.
“Yeah, and don’t come back.” Xander doubled his fists.
“Have a Zen moment, Xander. I’m the Slayer. You, not so much.”
Buffy patted his arm, touched by how her friends rallied to her defense. She was once again perplexed by the complex rules of high school life, where kids like these were outcasts while the cruelly hip had licenses to crush.
“We’ll hope for the best, okay?” she said. “Try to have fun.”
Xander lit up. “My wish is your command, O slaying one. Care to dance?”
Willow gave her a half-crooked smile and a shrug: Go ahead.
Buffy had picked up the vampire’s cup and was looking into it. “There’s nothing in this cup,” she said. “He was toying with us.”
“Buffy?” Xander pumped his arms in a vaguely disco manner. “Um, dancing?”
“You have got to be kidding,” Buffy said slowly as she stared at a couple across the room.
“Gee. No also works,” Xander said, hurt.
“What? Oh, Xander, I didn’t mean you,” Buffy said. She pointed. “That’s Jean-Luc Picard, the foreign exchange student.” Actually, his name was Jean-Pierre Goddard, but no one got out of high school without a nickname. “And look who he’s with.”
“You’ve never been into the gossip thing before,” Xander said.
“I’m looking,” Willow announced. “Nothing I see is taking my breath away.”
“He’s with a vampire chick,” Buffy announced, taking off her eye patch. Without turning her head, she felt for, and found, her Slayer satchel. “Looks like they’re headed for the storage basement.”
Indeed, the vamp chick, truly beautiful in a skimpy Cleopatra costume, had him by the nose—or rather, the hand—and she was letting her hips do the walking as the couple edged through the crowd. The look on Jean-Pierre’s face spoke of the hope that he was going where no French foreign exchange student had gone before, and it wasn’t to take inventory of how many black plastic cups the Bronze had on hand for the masquerade.
“How do you know she’s a vampire?” Willow asked, with true curiosity. “I can’t tell.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t want to make a mistake and mess up a beautiful moment,” Xander said.
Buffy shrugged. “Giles has been teaching me. There are a few clues. She’s very pale. Her way of walking indicates she’s a predator.”
“Well, so is Cordelia, and if we staked her, we’d get in mucho big trouble,” Xander pointed out.
“Or a medal,” Willow said. She shivered. “What are you going to do, Buffy?”
“Mess up a beautiful moment. Hopefully, it won’t be too messy.”
“We’ll come with,” Xander announced.
“No way. You stay up here. Monitor the sitch. Make sure no one else follows.” Buffy took a breath. Halloween was heating up after all. “For all I know, this is a plan to get me down there.”
“Then don’t go,” Willow said nervously. “He’s a big boy. He’ll be able to fight her off.”
Buffy grinned at Willow. “You know I can’t do that. I have a solemn responsibility.” She raised her chin and affected a British accent. “I and I alone, in all my generation, am the Slayah.”
“Pip, pip,” Xander said sourly. “Some girls will do anything to avoid dancing with me.”
“Not all girls
,” Willow murmured.
“Yeah, well, enough of them.”
“Dancing would be good,” Buffy said. “You guys could funk ’n’ roll over to the top of the basement stairs and stand guard.”
“Well, if you put it that way, I guess sacrifices have to be made,” Willow said. She firmly took Xander’s hand and led him into the gyrating cast of thousands.
Buffy worked around the perimeter, muttering halfhearted excuse me’s as she kept her gaze solidly on the storage door. It closed behind Jean-Pierre. She hurried, getting some protests as she bumped drink cups and stepped on toes. Couldn’t be helped.
When she reached the door, she held her satchel between her knees and fastened her cross around her neck. In this crowd, flashing it sooner would be like flashing a sheriff’s badge: Okay, ya lousy vampires, there’s gonna be trouble. She wondered if all the really cool fangy people there knew the Slayer was in their midst. If there were wanted posters of her. If the Master did an orientation for new vampires that included a manila folder labeled Buffy Summers, Slayer. Dossier. Bloodshot eyes only.
Buffy opened the door.
The stairs went down at a sharp angle. Overhead, a bare lightbulb hanging from the canted ceiling had burned out . . . or been smashed. She couldn’t do anything about that unless she wanted to announce her approach. Same thing with turning on the hefty black flashlight in her bag.
She took the steps one at a time, moving as silently as fog.
Down she went, listening to her own heartbeat. Sparing a worry for her friends, even a thought for the French kid she’d never spoken to but was risking her life to protect.
Farther down.
There was the mildew smell of standing water mixed with the smell of dirt and perfume.
She heard low laughter.
Candlelight glowed against the wall as she reached the foot of the stairs. There was soft music playing. She reached the corner, paused for a heartbeat, then three. Finally, she poked her head out and saw four or five couples cuddling on some old couches draped with bedspreads. She hesitated. If she hadn’t seen the vampire girl leading Jean-Pierre into the basement, this would be her cue to mutter, “Sorry,” and tiptoe back upstairs. But she knew that something funky was going on. Something unnatural. Evil.